


To Love and Be Loved

by ButterflyBunny



Series: Avengers' Infinite Playlist [14]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Artist Steve Rogers, Childhood Memories, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Morning After, Romance, Steve Rogers Feels, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 20:03:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6485644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterflyBunny/pseuds/ButterflyBunny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony finally finds a place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Love and Be Loved

**Author's Note:**

> This is set right after "[Instructions Not Included](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6269446)".

_[(Videogames – Lana del Rey)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE6wxDqdOV0) _

 

When Tony wakes up, groaning softly when he take his arm form underneath the pillow and his head, he is alone. The side of the bed where Steve had slept was still warm, like the man had woke up not long ago. He stares at the ceiling for a few seconds before closing his eyes again, he feels completely rested but feeling lazy enough to not stand from the bed just yet.

He hears a noise and rests his weight on one elbow to look at the feet of the bed, Steve is sitting on a big vintage chair he had in the corner of the room wearing underneath the blanket he had taken with him. He’s got his moleskin on his lap and he’s tracing on the page his eyes are fixated in.

“Hey” Tony runs a hand through his hair, “I thought you were gone”

Steve looks at him with a smile in his eyes, “I woke up a few minutes ago” he says, “Also this is my room, so…”

Tony snorts, “Right”

“I… I wanted to draw you like that” Steve says shyly, his eyes lingering on Tony’s body before looking back at the page.

Tony runs a hand through his hair and nods absently. Steve eyes him again and a faint blush spreads in his face. Tony realises he’s naked under the thin sheets of Steve’s bed.

“You are drawing me like one of your french girls?” He asks, teasing in his voice.

Steve takes a few seconds to understand, and when he does he glares playfully at Tony and keeps drawing. Tony then kicks the sheets off slowly, and when Steve looks back at him he stares for a few seconds, not like he’s studying him, but more like he’s trying to memorise him. He then changes the page and starts a new drawing.

“You are going to have to hide that thought” Tony says, his lips curving upwards when Steve huffs, blushing even more.

“I will” he promises, “You can keep it afterwards if you want”

“Why would I want a drawing of me naked?” He asks.

Steve rolls his eyes and looks at him, “I’ve been to floor eight, you keep a self portrait of yourself naked next to a Pollock”

Tony laughs, surprised by the snarky tone Steve uses when he raises and eyebrow at him, and the man smiles to himself content. He can see Steve wants to ask about that, but for some reason he doesn’t, maybe is because he is more focused in the drawing than in a having a conversation about other person painting Tony nude. Tony stays quiet then. He likes watching Steve draw, not that he saw him on that often, the man only did it in his room, where he locked himself for hours, and when he did it in his lab, Tony was too busy in his own creations.

A few minutes later Steve speaks.

“I saw a giant stuffed bunny in there too” He adds, chuckling softly, and he looks like he’s already finished the drawing.

“Oh, that” Tony snorts.

“How did you came up with that?” He asks.

“Well” Tony scratches his beard, “I figured if I fucked up big time with Pepper, I had to buy her a big present”

Steve hums, and then smiles, “Literally”

Tony nods and then Steve is quiet again, “Thinking about what you want when I screw up big time with you?”

He means it as a joke, even though he actually has another motorcycle he is planning on giving him “in case of emergency”, only Happy knows about it.

When he looks at Steve, the man is looking at him, a small frown on his face. He stands and walk towards him and when he sits on the bed, he leaves the moleskin on the nightstand, he mades a face when he sits and moves a little bit. Tony is about to ask if how he’s feeling but Steve speaks.

“Tony” Steve starts, “I don’t want anything from you but you” he leans and kisses his cheek, “Even if we fight I just want you”

“When” Tony says, looking at Steve’s lips, “Even when we-“

“Yes” Steve kisses him again, “Exactly” He smiles and then stands from the bed.

Tony grabs his hand and looks at him.

There is a lot he wants to tell Steve, the way he feels about the things he says, the promises he makes and the things he want to say to him, the promises he want to make and probably break only to want to mend them. Still he repeats what he had told him the night before, when he was still inside of him and Steve’s eyes were almost close.

“Thank you” Tony says.

“Wh-“

“For letting me love you”

The smiles Steve offers is one of relief, like that answers a question he had been asking himself so long. And it makes Tony’s chest flutters, heartbeat raise and wonder if he’s such an interesting enigma of a person that Steve wants to figure out but hasn’t. When Steve enters the bathroom, he waits for the shower to be on to grab the moleskin on the nightstand.

He sits on the bed and starts flipping the pages, the hundred of pages Steve had already drew on.

There is drawing of everyone and everything, from the view from his window, to cars and motorcycles, Clint is there with Natasha’s head on his shoulder, both of them with eyes closed and somehow looking tired, like they were back of a mission or something. Wanda smiling right back at him, Pietro looking distracted at something, and Tony raises his eyebrow because the man is shirtless and he wonders if he asked Steve to draw him, or if Steve asked permission to draw him.

Then he sees his aunt Peggy young, and beautiful as always, her eyes focused, unlike the times he went to visit her and she could barely remember him. The next pages are Peggy’s hands, and Peggy’s lips, her eyes and her smiles, and Tony skips the rest of her drawing because he feels like he’s invading Steve’s… Something.

He stops when he sees him.

All the sketches are black marker or pencil, but this one is looking at him with ocean blue irises and a side smirk on his face. The next pages are only James Barnes, his eyes, his nose, smile, everything drawn perfectly, the trace impeccable, like Steve spent hours and hours in each drawing. Tony smiles when he sees one of Steve himself, his then small, bony shoulders bumping with James’.

And then he gets to last one and notices is sad.

Long hair fall over the blue eyes, covering the cheekbones and even the before sharp jaw, the faint trace and evidence that Steve had erased and drawn over some line several times. It was like Steve was drawing a whole different person.

“Hey you said you didn’t want it”

He looks up and finds Steve leaning against the bathroom door frame. He’s dressed in blue jeans and a shirt that made his muscles stand out. He smiles at him and Tony flips the pages when Steve sits on the bed. He finds the last page and looks at himself.

“It’s really good” He says, “And I’m not saying it because is me!” he adds before Steve says something.

Steve chuckles, “For me, it’s because is you”

Tony groans, “Why do you always say things like that?” he throws himself in the bed and covers his face with his hands.

He feels a weight in his stomach a few seconds later, but no enough to make it hard for him to breathe. Steve straddles him and takes his hand off his face. He’s looking at him with his eyes crinkled in amusement, and he smiles when Tony frowns at him.

“I am a sap, remember?”

“Yes you are!”

Steve snorts and Tony kisses him. When he pulls back he thinks about something that can express how he feels in that moment, and he wonders if there is an exact word that simplifies the feeling he gets when Steve holds him, when he looks at him the way he’s looking at him right there and then. And he can’t. Instead he licks his lips and smiles nervously.

“Have you ever had cronuts before?”

Steve had never looked more confused before.

 

* * *

 

Tony decides to take the rest of the day off, he had advance enough on his last armour to give himself much deserve rest. He takes Steve to a cafe downtown, where they serve, according to Pepper, the best cronuts. They know very well that they can call the attention, so when they get out of the car the try to walk quietly inside the store. Steve holds his hand when they start walking and Tony smiles to himself and intertwines their fingers.

When the waitress leaves their order they look at each other and when Tony takes a bite and Steve follows he wrinkles his nose softly and Tony does too. He shakes his head and they both giggle and Tony laughs softly because they are two damn grown men, grown men aren’t suppose to giggle.

“Do you want to go somewhere else?” Steve asks.

 

* * *

 

Steve takes him to central park. It isn’t like Tony had never been there, but the times he had been, very few, he was always surrounded by bodyguards and people trying to get his picture. This time it was just Steve interested in being with him, there were a lot of people but everyone was minding their own business. Steve pulls from his arm.

“Wait here?”

He nods and he watches Steve walking towards a restaurant that’s next to the big lake, a carousel is next to it and there are several trees on the left side. He remembers the one time he tried to escape from home, he was seven and his parents where at some fancy party. Jarvis found him sleeping under some tree, shaking and mostly embarrassed. Tony just stands there, for some reason feeling out of his element, whatever that is. “Badassium” he thinks and laughs at his own joke.

“What’s so funny?” Steve’s voice makes him turn.

“Nothing” He shakes his head.

“Alright” He smiles, “Come”

He nods towards the trees and Tony follows him. Tony notices he has a brown bag in his hands, and before he can ask Steve starts talking about the waitress he befriended in that restaurant, that she always had his order ready when he visits there, which is every saturday morning.

“She likes Sam” Steve says, “He keeps asking permission to take her flying” Tony chuckles, “He asked me if you ever took me flying with the iroman suit”

He opens his mouth to speak but Steve stops and he bumps against his broad back. Steve holds his waist preventing him from falling. Tony nods and Steve smiles at him.

“Here” Steve says.

He sits leaning against a big black cherry tree and looks up at Tony. A couple walks next to them and Steve smiles politely at them, and Tony looks away, that’s when Steve takes his jacket and puts in on the grass. It’s a very odd gesture, old school chivalry that is just so Steve’s.

“You can sit” Steve says, “Don’t want those fancy pants of yours getting dirty”

Tony snorts. Steve shrugs and opens the bag. Tony sits next to him, feeling a little bad about using the jacket as a mat but Steve smiles at him and he doesn’t seem to mind. He offers him a sandwich and Tony looks at it, Steve remembers the whole not liking to be handed things and leaves it in his lap. He takes the first bite and hums happily.

“Good?”

“Good” Tony tells him.

“This is my favorite spot in central park” Steve says.

“The whole park?”

“The whole park”

Tony looks around.

It _is_ nice, there’s breeze but not a lot, the tree offers a nice shadow spot and the best of all, not much people walk through it. He looks up and realises that he can see the Avengers tower clearly from where he is.

“Lots of people wait to see you fly in”

He looks at Steve, “Yeah?” He bites down the sandwich.

Steve nods, “You haven’t use it recently”

He swallows and shrugs, “No need to”

Steve looks at him for a few seconds and then looks at his sandwich taking a big bite. They fall into a comfortable silence after that, a few people pass by them but they ignore them and after they finish eating Tony looks at Steve. He looks serene as he leans against the tree smiling when a dog passes running infront of them. He imagines Steve sitting there enjoying a sandwich or maybe drawing like he does in his room, even sitting there waiting for him to fly over in the Ironman suit.

“How did you find this place?” Tony asks, leaning against the tree too.

“Sam and I were running” Steve explains, “He tried to keep up and ended up barfing there” he points at the trash can a few meters from them.

Tony laughs loudly and Steve follows, “Poor guy”

“Ashley nursed him back to health”

“Ashley the waitress” Steve nods and Tony hums.

“Is nice here”

“And quiet” Steve adds, “I think is the only place this quiet in the whole city apart from my room”

“And you like quiet” Tony says.

“I like quiet” Steve confirms, “What’s your favorite place?”

“Huh?”

“Your favorite place” Steve repeats, “Don’t say your lab, please”

Tony chuckles and considers it for a second. He had never had a place he likes to go for quiet or concentration other than his lab, no place he enjoys being just because he can, like Steve has that spot under that tree. A man passes infront of them and Tony sees in his face, for a split of second, Jarvis.

“I never really went out when I was a kid” Tony says.

“Not even to central park?”

“Of course” Tony nods, “But there was always people around, bodyguards or people trying to get my picture”

“Oh”

Tony thinks about it, “One time, though… Jarvis took me to feed the birds on the other side of the lake” he smiles sadly, “Ana, his wife had died and he said he wanted to spend time with me, that it made him happy being with me” he says, “Feeding birds”

Steve hums, “Jarvis?”

“My Butler” He says, he scratches his beard, “He was actually more than that… He and Ana raised me better than my own parents ever did” He looks at Steve with the corner of his eye, “Don’t get me wrong I loved my mother” he adds, and he doesn’t mention his father in that statement knowingly.

“Jarvis sounds like a nice man”

“He was kind of a dork” Steve chuckles, “He was kind of like the cool uncle I never had” He said, “Only with him I did inventions for fun”

He looks pensive for a few seconds, and then he realises he started talking about his miserable childhood, shakes his head and decides he won’t ruin the day with all that talk.

Steve nods, “Jarvis… Peggy mentions him sometimes”

“Yeah, aunt Peggy and him were good friends” Tony looks at his hands, “Sorry”

Steve frowns, “Why?”

“I know you don’t like Peggy mentioned”

“What gives you that impression?” Tony waves a hand, “You get all… Gloomy”

Steve chuckles, “I don’t mind” he says, “I would like to talk about her with you”

“Not without Peggy’s permission, she would pull my ear if I spill embarrassing stories” Tony says and Steve laughs, he nudges his shoulder.

“Sounds like her” Steve says.

Tony nods and he doesn’t say anything about the way Steve gets quiet after that. He leans in and Steve looks at him in the eye, he then takes his hand to the blond’s face and cleans the corner of his mouth from a spot of mustard in it. Steve licks his lips and wipes himself with the back of his hand.

“Thanks” Steve says.

Tony chuckles and shakes his head, then he kisses him, a small peck on his lips. He wonders if the feeling of serenity he gets in that moment is because the place is nice, because he hadn’t had a quiet moment in a while or if it’s because he had a full night of sleep. He then remembers the night before and is like Steve does too because he’s blushing slightly, that’s when Tony realises his hand is on Steve’s tight squeezing slightly.

“About that flight” Tony says, retrieving his hand, “Just say when”

A wide smile split Steve’s face and he nods.

 

* * *

 

They get to the tower a few hours later, after Tony shows Steve around the city, to the places he hadn’t seen. They go to their rooms and he goes to his bathroom. When he gets out Steve is sitting on his bed and he stands when he sees him, Tony covers his chest unconsciously and Steve looks away when he notices.

“I brought you the drawing” He says, pretending to look around.

“I told you you could keep it” Tony chuckles, “I would like one of you though” he says nodding at the moleskin in Steve’s lap.

Steve nods, “oh, alright” he opens the notebook starts looking at the pages.

“Naked” He adds.

Steve laughs and rolls his eyes, “I haven’t really… drawn myself”

Tony finishes dressing and crawl on the bed with Steve.

The man smiles as Tony lays next to him.

“You tired?” Steve asks, looking at the pages distractibly.

Tony raises and eyebrow, “Not for that” he says teasingly.

Steve laughs and leans in to kiss him, “I didn’t mean it like that”

“Alright”

“But” Steve kisses him again, “I don’t mind kissing a little bit”

“A lot” Tony says, “A lot, is better”

Tony then kisses his cheek and Steve smiles, he kisses him in the lips and Tony kisses him back. They kiss for what seemed hours, rolling on the bed until he’s on top of Steve but not completely.

Kissing Steve is addictive, or better said, the feeling he gets is, is something that gets him from somewhere deep inside of him, a warm feeling of infinite happiness that he gets with Steve and only with him. He wonders if that’s how being loved felt like.

“Are you with me?” Steve asks against his lips.

“Sure”

They lay on the bed for a few more minutes, not kissing but just enjoying each other’s company. And when Steve grabs his sketchbook from the nightstand Tony looks at the pages.

“You like my hands” Tony mentions.

“I do” Steve nods, “They… Create”

He swallows when he sees a drawing of his chest, back when he had the arc reactor and he wonders how many times did Steve saw it to draw it like that. When he notices the edges are not as well traced as the other drawings.

“I never got to see it” Steve says, “So I wasn’t sure… If I was doing it right”

“Close enough” He says, he then adds, “You can have it”

“What?”

“The arc reactor” Tony says, “I still have it” he shrugs, “You can keep it”

“You don’t have to” Steve says.

“Well, is there whenever you want it” Steve looks at him and smiles softly, he nods and then yawns, “I should…”

“Stay” Tony says, “You can sleep here”

Steve nods, leaves the notebook on the nightstand and they accommodate on the bed. Tony lays next to him and Steve opens his eyes to look at him, he smiles, his eyes sleepy and Tony moves closer to him, until their noses are close and he nuzzles his nose.

“I know now” He says.

“What?”

“My favorite place”

“Yeah?”

Tony nods, “I am in my favorite place wherever I’m with you”

Tony is not looking at him now, his eyes are closed and Steve can see a small smile on his lips. He smiles widely.

“You’re such a sap”

Tony snorts and hides his face in the crook of his neck. At least now he knows.

 

 

_“Heaven is a place on earth with you… They say that the world was built for two, only worth living if somebody is loving you, now you do…”_


End file.
